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Page 54
The men began to murmur at persisting in an attempt impossible to be
concealed much longer. They were afraid to venture on board the grim
colliers, and go groping down into their hulls to fire them. It seemed
like a voluntary entrance into dungeons and death.
"Follow me, all of you but ten by the boats," said Paul, without
noticing their murmurs. "And now, to put an end to all future burnings
in America, by one mighty conflagration of shipping in England. Come on,
lads! Pipes and matches in the van!"
He would have distributed the men so as simultaneously to fire different
ships at different points, were it not that the lateness of the hour
rendered such a course insanely hazardous. Stationing his party in front
of one of the windward colliers, Paul and Israel sprang on board.
In a twinkling they had broken open a boatswain's locker, and, with
great bunches of oakum, fine and dry as tinder, had leaped into the
steerage. Here, while Paul made a blaze, Israel ran to collect the
tar-pots, which being presently poured on the burning matches, oakum and
wood, soon increased the flame.
"It is not a sure thing yet," said Paul, "we must have a barrel of
tar."
They searched about until they found one, knocked out the head and
bottom, and stood it like a martyr in the midst of the flames. They then
retreated up the forward hatchway, while volumes of smoke were belched
from the after one. Not till this moment did Paul hear the cries of his
men, warning him that the inhabitants were not only actually astir, but
crowds were on their way to the pier.
As he sprang out of the smoke towards the rail of the collier, he saw
the sun risen, with thousands of the people. Individuals hurried close
to the burning vessel. Leaping to the ground, Paul, bidding his men
stand fast, ran to their front, and, advancing about thirty feet,
presented his own pistol at now tumultuous Whitehaven.
Those who had rushed to extinguish what they had deemed but an
accidental fire, were now paralyzed into idiotic inaction, at the
defiance of the incendiary, thinking him some sudden pirate or fiend
dropped down from the moon.
While Paul thus stood guarding the incipient conflagration, Israel,
without a weapon, dashed crazily towards the mob on the shore.
"Come back, come back," cried Paul.
"Not till I start these sheep, as their own wolves many a time started
me!"
As he rushed bare-headed like a madman, towards the crowd, the panic
spread. They fled from unarmed Israel, further than they had from the
pistol of Paul.
The flames now catching the rigging and spiralling around the masts,
the whole ship burned at one end of the harbor, while the sun, an hour
high, burned at the other. Alarm and amazement, not sleep, now ruled the
world. It was time to retreat.
They re-embarked without opposition, first releasing a few prisoners, as
the boats could not carry them.
Just as Israel was leaping into the boat, he saw the man at whose house
he had procured the fire, staring like a simpleton at him.
"That was good seed you gave me;" said Israel, "see what a yield,"
pointing to the flames. He then dropped into the boat, leaving only Paul
on the pier.
The men cried to their commander, conjuring him not to linger.
But Paul remained for several moments, confronting in silence the
clamors of the mob beyond, and waving his solitary hand, like a
disdainful tomahawk, towards the surrounding eminences, also covered
with the affrighted inhabitants.
When the assailants had rowed pretty well off, the English rushed in
great numbers to their forts, but only to find their cannon no better
than so much iron in the ore. At length, however, they began to fire,
having either brought down some ship's guns, or else mounted the rusty
old dogs lying at the foot of the first fort.
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